Guardian of Heaven and Earth
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Kanbal
Part 4 - The Crown Prince's Pride
Chapter 1 - Night in the Mountains
Soft, light snow started to fall. It was only a little past noon; the sky was leaden gray with heavy, oppressive clouds. The line of the mountain ridge was lit up brightly even though everything else was in shadow.
Balsa rode her horse slowly, crouched over instead of sitting up straight. Chirari was concerned for her when they left camp, but Balsa couldn’t be deterred, even by injury.
Chagum understood that they had to move as quickly as possible to make an alliance with the King of Kanbal, but the expression on Chirari’s face when she’d looked at Balsa before they’d left worried him. Balsa’s wounds were severe, and she still had a fever.
It was bitingly cold. Chagum urged his horse on despondently under the foreboding sky. Neither he nor Balsa were carrying any packs or luggage now. They’d had enough money to purchase new horses to replace the ones they’d lost at Kahm’s castle, but there hadn’t been any money left over for anything else, including food. Chirari had shared her food and medicine with Balsa and Chagum, but they only had enough food for a few more days on short rations. And without Chirari’s allies among the Kashal, they would have had to travel the entire way back to Kanbal’s capital city on foot.
Where are we even going?
Chagum had asked Balsa that question many times, but she didn’t tell Chagum what she was planning.
“You’re better off not knowing,” Balsa had said the first time he’d asked. “If you knew, you wouldn’t be able to hide that fact if we were questioned, and there are certain things that need to be kept secret.”
Balsa revealed nothing else to Chagum She had ordered the Kashal to stay away and not follow. Balsa claimed that if the Kashal followed them, then there was no way that her plan would succeed.
Balsa had the other Kashal to ride ahead and keep watch over the royal palace. “If we don’t come out and you see riders emerging from the palace, send an urgent message to Prince Ihan in Rota so that he can prepare for war with Kanbal. The Talsh already have southern Rota in their grip; with Kanbal, they can take over northern Rota with a pincer attack.”
Chirari had gone pale at these words, but she’d nodded.
Chagum and Balsa wore thick karru winter coats to keep them warm. Their horses shuffled through the snow at their feet. After what felt like a long journey, a village appeared in the distance. Goats grazed in pens and people hid themselves inside their squat stone houses to protect against the cold. Small huts lined the edge of the village.
Balsa pointed her horse toward the small huts. She approached one and noticed a depression on the ground that led to a storage cellar. She turned her horse toward it. As she drew closer, she heard footsteps and the bleating of goats coming from the cellar. The smell was so overwhelming that Chagum frowned.
They must have brought the goats inside for the winter, Chagum thought. He understood the advantage: goats would keep people warmer in winter, after all, but he didn’t think he’d be able to stand the stench, personally.
“Wait here,” Balsa said. She dismounted, not without difficultly; her movements were laborious and slow. She descended two steps and knocked on the door of the cellar and requested to be let in in Kanbalese. The door opened, revealing a short woman. Chagum was astonished; the woman wasn’t even tall enough to reach Balsa’s waist. He thought she was a child for a moment, but her face was that of an adult. Her hair was brown and her eyes were bright and wide open; he thought that she appeared kind and sympathetic. Some children peeked out from behind the women; these scarcely reached Balsa’s knees in terms of height.
Are these the Herder people?
Chagum had heard about them from Balsa, but he hadn’t expected them to be so small.
The Herder woman started in surprise. “Kane? Maa! Maa!”
Chagum had no idea what she was saying. He tried to listen closer, but a strong wind blew her words away.
Balsa said something that made the Herder woman flinch. The woman wrung her hands, then set up a ladder that could be used to access lower levels of the house. More Herder women came up the ladder behind the first. As her friends came up from the lower cellar, the first Herder woman glanced sidelong at Chagum, then crossed the street to another hut and used her hands to whistle loudly, twice.
“What’s going on?” Chagum asked Balsa.
Balsa kept looking at the whistling Herder woman when she answered, “The Herders use whistling like speech, to communicate over distances.”
More Herder women appeared outside their huts. Young and old, they lined up in neat rows. They formed a ring on the snowy ground and started consulting with one another in hushed voices.
“One of the Herder woman has a cellar that connects to the royal palace,” Balsa said softly. “I was hoping that she would guide us there, but she passed away last year.”
“Then what will we do now?” Chagum asked.
“She had friends,” Balsa said, gesturing. “They’re deciding whether or not they should guide us, or only me alone.”
The Herder women spoke for a long time. It was hard to wait so long in the freezing wind. While Chagum was stomping his feet to keep them warm, the Herder women seemed to come to a decision. They nodded to one another, then approached Balsa and Chagum as a group.
The oldest woman looked up at Balsa and said, “You are from Kanbal, so we have no concerns in guiding you to the palace, but we cannot guide this foreigner.”
“I came to this place so that I could lead him there,” Balsa said, calmly but firmly. “So I beg you to allow him to come as well. The lives of thousands of people depend on him getting into the palace.”
The old woman’s face crinkled in a severe frown. “It truly is hard...” She sank into thought. Some of the other women stared whistling to one another; they sounded a little like a flock of twittering birds.
The old woman thought and listened to her friends. After a long moment, she nodded, though she kept her face cast down. “All right. I’ll take you both to consult with everyone. We’ll let all the Herders decide what to do.”
After all the Herders consulted with one another, a slightly plump woman was chosen as Balsa and Chagum’s guide. The path would be far too steep for horses, so they entrusted their mounts to the Herders until they returned. Balsa and Chagum followed the Herder woman up the steep mountain path.
Though the woman was quite short, he walked very quickly. The path was quickly choked with boulders; they had to weave in and out of animal trails and short stretches of proper road. Sometimes, she jumped from boulder to boulder, just like a mountain goat.
“Please wait,” Chagum called out to the Herder woman. “I’m not used to traveling this way, and Balsa is injured. Could you allow us to rest for a moment?”
The Herder woman turned to look at him, clearly surprised. She nodded her head. “Sorry. I forgot that the pace might be too fast for you. I was worried about reaching our destination before it was full night. Forgive me; I’ll go slower.”
Her solicitousness was also unexpected, given everything Chagum had heard and seen so far. Everything about the Herders was strange to him, but the Herder woman’s kind voice brushed away much of his discomfort and unease. He still didn’t know where they were going, and picking his way along the route was very difficult, but he felt like they would make it, somehow.
They rested for a while, then kept going. Balsa seized Chagum’s arm from behind.
“Balsa? Are you all right?”
She nodded, but she didn’t say anything. It was too dark for Chagum to be able to see much of her face, but he felt her hand trembling where it held his arm. He shifted Balsa’s arm over his own shoulder and supported her as they walked.
Balsa hesitated, but then rested her entire weight on Chagum’s shoulders. When he got tired, Balsa supported him instead. They climbed up the narrow, rocky path, step by slow step.
When it was fully dark, Chagum felt something warm and wet on his face. The chill in his bones was suddenly lifted away; he felt like his entire body was suspended in warm water. His shoulders shook as he saw the water of Nayugu all around him. So many spirits were swimming in the water that it was impossible to count them all. He heard Balsa’s voice, but it sounded like it was coming from very far away; he couldn’t tell what she was saying at all. The sound of the spirits swimming and interacting was so loud that it drowned out everything else.
Chagum closed his eyes. This is a place where Nayugu and Sagu are connected.
There was power in the water; Chagum could feel it and draw on it despite his exhaustion. He felt like his entire body was melting into Nayugu. He was warm and comfortable all over for the first time in weeks.
Balsa’s voice sounded more urgent. Chagum focused on returning to Sagu before he was completely washed away in Nayugu’s water.
“Chagum?” Balsa asked.
Her face was hazy in the rippling water. Chagum reached out and grabbed her thick winter karro coat before her face could fade from view. Balsa stopped moving as Chagum returned from Nayugu. Chagum stopped still and trembled violently, but he wasn’t cold.
Balsa pulled Chagum into a fierce hug. Chagum still smelled the water of Nayugu, an intense smell like the air after a heavy rainstorm. That smell brought back so many old memories...when he’d carried the water spirit’s egg, he had always smelled the water of Nayugu whenever he’d been jolted away from Sagu by the spirit.
Where am I? Close to Nayugu, obviously--am I close to the Mountain King’s Hall?
Chagum’s body suddenly felt much lighter, though he wasn’t sure why. The air in front of him rippled again; he felt like he was about to melt into Nayugu again. Chagum gritted his teeth; the sound grounded him in Sagu. Balsa was holding him tight. The world around him stopped rippling and solidified again.
“Are you all right?” Balsa whispered.
Chagum nodded, then took a step back from her. His forehead was beaded with sweat. The Herder woman guiding them looked at Chagum with a dubious expression, but when she saw that Chagum was able to move on his own again, she whistled through her fingers. What she whistled was a very complex tune different from what Chagum had heard before. The whistle lingered in the air, carried on the cold wind. Balsa and Chagum stood elbow-to-elbow and waited, staring into the darkness.
Chagum thought he saw something in the darkness ahead of him and rubbed his eyes. He held his breath as a mysterious source of light appeared in the distance, then another, then another. Herders approached with these strange lights, making no sound as they moved.
“It’s all right,” Balsa said. “It’s just more Herders.”
“Their eyes are shining...”
And they were. Chagum couldn’t tell if they were shining in the illumination of the Herders’ strange lights or if they glowed from within.
“The Herders see well, even in the dark,” Balsa said. “They turn a poisonous plant called togal into a liquid and put it on their eyelids. It lets them see in the dark, as clear as day.”
The wind carried the smell of the Herders’ leather and wool clothes to Chagum’s nose. The Herders gathered on a ledge slightly above Chagum and Balsa, then sat down.
One of the Herders approached Balsa. “It’s been a long time. I am glad to be able to guide you again,” he said.
Balsa bowed her head deeply. “I must thank you again for guiding me last time.”
The Herder nodded, then glanced briefly at Chagum before returning his attention to Balsa. “We wanted to hear your story from your own mouth before making our final decision,” he said.
Balsa told the Herders about her journey through Kanbal. She told them that Chagum was the Crown Prince of New Yogo and that the Talsh Empire was coming to invade Kanbal. She explained what she’d seen of the Kanbalese cavalry’s movements and that Chagum wanted an audience with King Radalle.
It took a long time for Balsa to explain everything, but the Herders stood still and listened without saying a word.
“If the King of Kanbal creates an alliance with the Talsh Empire, then Talsh people will come here. They will learn the secret of luisha and seek to steal it for themselves. To prevent this, Chagum intends to propose an alliance between Rota and Kanbal. This would create a defensive wall that would be difficult for the Talsh army to penetrate. The Herder people have an interest in keeping the Talsh away from Kanbal. Please help us.”
There was no immediate reply when Balsa stopped speaking. Chagum heard nothing but the sighing of the wind.
The Herders started whispering and whistling to each other. They spoke so quickly that even Balsa couldn’t understand their words, but it was clear that they were deliberating.
Chagum let out a breath that he didn’t know he’d been holding and looked around at the chaotic scene. Herders talked over one another and waved to get attention. He couldn’t even tell what the subject of their discussion was; his Kanbalese either wasn’t fluent enough, or they were speaking another language entirely.
Suddenly, all the Herders stopped speaking at once. The Herder man who had spoken to Balsa before said, “We understand why the Crown Prince is here, Balsa. We also know that our nation is in grave danger. What you intend to do is very important. I hope that you succeed, for all our sakes.
“However, we currently have no authority to summon the King or the King’s Spears.”
“You must understand,” another Herder said from above. “We only call on the King during the Giving Ceremony, on behalf of the Mountain King. We have never summoned the King or the Spears to the Mountain King’s Hall for any other reason. We made an agreement with the King of Kanbal long ago that this would be so, and we cannot go back on our word.”
The Herders were still and silent. It was as quiet as the heart of a mountain.
Balsa felt something like genuine despair. She didn’t know what else she could say to convince the Herders.
Chagum stood up straight, still supporting Balsa. He looked out at all the Herders and said in clear Kanbalese, “Thank you for agreeing to hear us.” He looked toward Balsa. “Let’s go.”
Balsa nodded. As they turned to leave, one of the Herders called out to them, “Please rest in our huts for the night.”
Chagum stared at the man who had made the request. It was true that he and Balsa needed rest. The solemnity of the Herders and how concerned they seemed to be about ceremony and responsibility reminded him strongly of his own father, the Mikado of New Yogo. He didn’t want to rely on them when they’d refused his request to be guided to the King of Kanbal.
But it also seemed like he had no choice but to rely on them. Balsa and Chagum had no money for an inn, even if they could find one in the mountains before they froze to death. Balsa was still hurt.
“Please allow us to rest for tonight with you,” Chagum said.
The Herder who had made the suggestion for Balsa and Chagum to stay with them made some sort of signal. A boy emerged from the assembled Herders and jumped down from the snowy ledge above onto the same level as Balsa and Chagum. He was carrying something in his hands.
“Close your eyes,” the boy said to Chagum.
Chagum did, though not without apprehension. He saw something like light dancing from behind his closed eyelids, but he couldn’t identify it.
“You can open your eyes now,” the boy said.
When Chagum opened his eyes, he blinked over and over again, trying to get his bearings. His surroundings looked completely different. Most of the world had been shrouded in darkness before, but now he could see the Herders and everything on the mountain as if it had been illuminated by a full moon.
“We ask that you wear clothing like ours--leather and furs to keep out the wind,” one of the Herders said. “Please follow us.”
Balsa and Chagum watched as the Herders shuffled back to their homes in the darkness.
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